UMD professor hopes to design learning aides for blind children in Qatar

DARTMOUTH — Special needs children living in the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar often find themselves left out in the cold when it comes to standardized tests and school work, but a UMass Dartmouth professor hopes to change all of that starting in January.

DARTMOUTH — Special needs children living in the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar often find themselves left out in the cold when it comes to standardized tests and school work, but a UMass Dartmouth professor hopes to change all of that starting in January.

"The government here wants to make (Qatar) the educational Mecca of the Middle East," said education professor Sheila Macrine, who recently received a $600,000 grant from the Qatari government to develop learning aids and assessment tests for blind Arabic-speaking children.

The small, oil-rich nation of 2.5 million people sits on a peninsula in the Persian Gulf, bordering Saudi Arabia.

Birth defects — particularly blindness — and diabetes, as well as obesity, plague Qatar, according to studies by the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

The high rate of birth defects has slowed down Qatar's plan to provide a solid education to all of its children, Macrine said. The lack of standardized assessment tests for Arabic-speakers also hinders the tiny desert nation's educational aspirations, she added.

"There are no IQ tests converted into Arabic ... We'll have to develop an assessment tool," she said. "Even (in the U.S.) we don't have much for Spanish speakers."

Macrine first became interested in the small desert nation while working at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia when she mentored a blind Qatari graduate student.

Starting in January, Macrine will begin meeting with Qatari parents, education officials and teachers to develop a standardized test that would judge elementary students' intelligence and capabilities. Qatari officials and Macrine will travel to each other's countries twice a year for the project, which is expected to last three years, she said.

Macrine said she intends to convert an assessment test called the Oregon Project for Visually Impaired & Blind Preschool Children. The test judges students' intelligence based on how inquisitive they are and how they express themselves. It can be scaled up for elementary school children up to age 6, she said.

"We can't just use a direct translation," Macrine said, referring to the need for her project and why it will take three years. "We have to make sure it's culturally and linguistically